The Japanese government is refusing to act to stamp out child pornography, a failure that has resulted in this country becoming the world’s “kiddie-porn superpower,” according to a lawyer and head of the Forum for Creating a Society That Does Not Tolerate Child Pornography.

Keiji Goto was speaking at the Club on May 14 as part of the pressure group’s efforts to bring about meaningful legislation to clamp down on child pornography, but admitted at the press conference that a lack of political will and the indifference of the Japanese media mean it is unlikely that anything significant will happen in the near future. The government has said it wants to persuade Internet service providers to block access to sites containing child pornography, but it doesn’t tackle the key issue of possession.

And that means it will still be legal for an individual to possess indecent photos of young boys and girls. Goto – who was a police officer specializing in combating child pornography for 23 years – has sickening tales to tell of finding images of naked children bound with rope or of mothers selling shots of their own infant children.

And he expresses bafflement at how politicians can consider this acceptable behavior.

“We consider child pornography to be the worst of all evils and we find it hard to understand how images of naked children tied up with ropes can be considered acceptable,” Goto said.

“We are urging all the political parties here to ban the possession of child pornography in the present session of parliament, but I am not at all optimistic that it will happen,” he said.

In 2009, the Liberal Democratic Party government submitted a bill to revise the law on child pornography, supported by New Komeito, but lost the general election in August before it could be enacted. The Democratic Party of Japan opposed the bill and instead called for the definition of child pornography to be narrowed down, while acquisition of such images for money and multiple acquisitions would be made illegal.

“The only people who will be pleased at the failure to pass this legislation are pedophiles,” said Goto.

The scale – and immediacy – of the problem were underlined the same day when it was announced that despite efforts by the National Police Agency to pressure Internet service providers, fully 25 percent of child pornography images posted on the Internet in the year to December remained available. And of those that were removed, it took an average of nearly eight days between the police making the request and the service provider complying.

Twenty people were arrested in the same week for posting child pornography on a website accessible via mobile phones and set up by a 17-year-old high school student. The youth, whose name cannot be released, has admitted the allegations and said he started providing images of naked pre-teen boys so he could collect images from people who shared his interest.

According to the National Police Agency, it received 4,486 complaints from the public of child pornography on the Internet in 2009 and a record 650 people were charged with offenses related to child pornography. Campaigners believe that represents the tip of the iceberg.

One of the most vocal opponents of laws that would halt depictions of child abuse is the manga industry, which mobilized in March to voice its opposition to a proposal by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to outlaw scenes involving sex and violence in children’s comics and impose an age limit on anyone buying sexually explicit manga.

Headed by such well-known figures in the industry here as Fujiko Fujio A, the creator of Hattori the Ninja and the Laughing Salesman, and Tetsuya Chiba, who draws the Tomorrow’s Joe manga, the artists told reporters that the planned law affects their freedom of expression.

Machiko Satonaka, another manga artist, told reporters that the proposed legislation “pertains to freedom of expression and is open to a variety of interpretations.” She added that she was “horrified” that the city government was planning to regulate comic characters because “no one is actually being harmed.”

Goto disputes that claim.

“They claim that there is no victim when these images are drawings, cartoons or in video games, but we say that these images can be very realistic and show children being raped and looking as if they are enjoying it,” he said. “That cannot be an argument in favor of freedom of expression as it merely shows a child as an object for sex. We also have reports that these images have been shown to children and they are told that it is enjoyable.”

Goto holds the Japanese media in similar disdain, pointing out that the forum’s campaign has received little coverage from the mainstream newspapers, while the Asahi actively supported the manga artists’ position on the issue.

“We have been very disappointed at the lack of interest in the Japanese media and we think it is indefensible that cartoons are being sold that depict child pornography and can be defended by the claim of ‘freedom of expression,’” he said. “We consider it our duty to protect our children.” ❶

Julian Ryall is the Japan correspondent of The Daily Telegraph.